Friday, June 27, 2014

Google Talk to Type on Blogger: It can be done

        I wanted to test and see if I could actually do a blog post in Blogger using Google Talk to Type. I was actually surprised to see that what I typed was what I said which tells me that this is another accessibility tool that teachers can be using with their students. 
        I can see it being used especially for students who have a lot of trouble writing and typing and getting their words across. There are some kids out there, who are able to talk and get the point across a lot better than type or write. Sometimes their handwriting is hard to read or they are physically unable to write as much due to a disability.
        If you, as a teacher, may decide to have your students do blog posts or do writing prompts of some sort you can actually set them up in Blogger to do this.  The students who have trouble sharing their thoughts and making them fluid could actually talk and then let it type what they have to say. I agree, it's possible, that you will have things that are little unorganized but you will actually have more content coming from the students when they talk to type.
       I can actually see this talk to type accessibility being used and a lot of different classrooms. If a student has trouble taking notes in a classroom, the teacher could use talk to type and let the student take notes that way and actually record word for word what the teacher says as a later tool to refer to when it comes to taking a test. This would work perfectly for those times when an instructional assistant is not available to go into the classroom with a special needs student. 
       The teacher can actually record himself or herself doing the notes and the special education student could refer to the notes with the resource room staff as a review.  One of the things we did discover, is that if you are using a foreign language this Google Talk to type does not work as well and it is very inaccurate. I would not recommend using it in a foreign language class as a way of helping students do better because what you're going to see come up is not actual factual information.
        I did have to go back to the actual post and edit a little, add punctuation and check the spelling of a few words before I was able to publish it, but, as a means of offering assitance to that kid who isn't a good writer or isn't a good speller, this is a fantastic tool. It can do a lot to help students study, review and assure they are taking good notes as well.  

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